For those of you yet unafflicted by Olympic Fever, Rippon, an American figure skater and the first openly gay athlete in US Winter Olympics history, has quickly become the media darling of the Pyeongchang Olympics. On Monday night (on that side of the world), he skated a near flawless performance to help the United States to a bronze medal in the team skating competition.

According to Rippon, “I would absolutely not go out of my way to meet somebody who I felt has gone out of their way to not only show that they aren’t a friend of a gay person but that they think that they’re sick.”

Advertisement

When reports surfaced two weeks later that Pence had asked for a meeting with Rippon to clear the air (reports the VP’s office denied), Rippon stuck to his guns and said he had no interest in meeting Pence.

Today he’s a member of a presidential administration that is actively seeking to enshrine into law the treatment of LGBT Americans as second class citizens. The Justice Department, under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, has withdrawn policies that safeguard the rights of transgender workers. Trump himself has sought to restore the ban on transgender Americans serving in the military. Sessions has also offered his support for a private lawsuit that argues discrimination against gay Americans in the workplace should be legal and has offered words of support to businesses that refuse service to LGBT customers.

Advertisement

Just this week, the Education Department announced it won’t take any action on complaints from transgender students banned from using restrooms that match their gender identity.

It’s small wonder that Rippon has said about Pence, “as a member of the LGBT community, I want to speak out, because he’s spoken about people like me.” I surely wouldn’t want to normalize someone seeking to take away my rights as a Jewish American or who had backed efforts to use public resources to convert Jews to Christianity, so when Adam Rippon, as a gay American, wants to take the same position in regard to Mike Pence, he’s got my support.

At a time when the Trump administration is systematically working to chip away the rights of LGBT Americans — and waging a daily assault on truth and deriding any story they don’t like as “fake news” — having that platform means also speaking truth to power. I’m quite sure that Adam Rippon would rather be spending his time focused on trying to win a gold medal or extending his Twitter-romance with Reese Witherspoon. I’m sure he’d rather live in a society in which being a gay Olympian is no more noteworthy than being a straight Olympian. I’m sure the last thing he wants to be doing, and the last thing that any of us should be doing during the majesty of the Olympics, is talking politics. But alas, that’s not the world we live in today. None of us have the luxury of sitting out.

America today needs honesty and candor more than ever, and it needs prominent individuals — in every sphere of American life — who are willing to state basic facts. After all, truth matters, no matter who is voicing it.